


Sensible Silk Shirts

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Drop the Dead Donkey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-21
Updated: 2005-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunday 31st August, 1997. Globelink rises to the broadcasting crisis with their usual ruthless efficiency, and in any case, other news is far more distracting.  Joy/Helen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sensible Silk Shirts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Darwin

 

 

According to books marketed to a certain income range and personality type, it is possible to tell everything you might need to know about someone by what they choose to wear to work.

Certainly Gus' suits told their own story, although it possibly wasn't  
the one the experts on the field assured him they would. Each was priced highly enough to keep a third world family of twenty-seven in clothes and goats for a few years, selected in careful accordance with the latest article on executive dressing, and had about as much substance. George's shapeless cardigans were a novel of a particular dispiriting brand of kitchen sink realism, the kind that would leave you feeling vaguely heart-broken about the world if you let it, which was quite all right as Joy never had the patience for books about male inadequacy in the first place. She was all for sending them off to sweat lodges to discover their inner wolf, so long as she was allowed to spike the sauna ovens with something fatal. Damien's artistically splattered flak jackets could be read as evidence of a white-knuckled past or, as Joy privately read them, as evidence of a sad wanker with an ego problem. Sally's beautifully cut jackets and rhinestone brooches, David's slightly-too-young jeans, Henry's old-fashioned but immaculate pinstripe suits; the Globelink wardrobe told far more about the idiosyncrasies of its staff than Joy personally wanted to know.

Helen affected tailored pants or slim-line skirts with plain vests, not expensively or particularly well made but just on the acceptable side of dowdiness. And silk shirts. Joy, when she was bored enough to think about it, was quite sure that Helen read guides on executive dressing just as faithfully as Gus, although hers would be earnest treatises on smashing glass ceilings and the role of clothes in being taken seriously in the workplace. It was no accident at all that the accepted masculine garb of her trousers was paired with jewel-coloured, touchable silk, a careful structured message about feminine curves under practical male attire, that the bouncy golden curls topped off the discreet, rather unattractive makeup. Margaret Thatcher could have taken lessons from Helen.

It really pissed Joy off.

It might or might not have made her feel less furious with Helen if she knew that Helen, as faithfully as she read the books and articles, felt guilty about it, and mentally beat herself up for not being strong enough, self-assured enough, _feminist_ enough to wear what she damn well wanted and not expect to be judged by it. Probably, on balance, Joy would have been even more pissed-off. There was something about the way Helen made trying to do the right thing into some kind of unobtainable religious standard that made Joy want to shake her, or take her out and get her drunk, or sneak in at night and erase her computer files, just do something to thwart the unreasonably high standards to which she held herself and the rest of the Globelink staff. Get her drunk, for preference. Joy had never seen anyone become inebriated the way Helen did. Other people became loud and laughed too much or tearful and inclined to tears. When Helen drank too much her voice went slow and dreamy, sliding out of her with the languor of golden syrup pooling from a spoon but the texture of something far more airy and somehow pinker; if candy floss could pour, that would be Helen's voice after a couple of drinks over her limit. It was as if all the conscientious striving that made her so difficult to work with was dissolved in alcohol, or perhaps it was merely that she had to concentrate harder to remember the words. Life at Globelink would probably be a lot less like being part of Stalin's workforce if Helen had a few shots of vodka before turning up to work.

The neat navy skirts and printed silk shirts were all part of what made Helen a pain in Joy's arse instead of the attractive girl who emerged from a flagon of champagne. Joy wasn't entirely certain why the soft gloss of a silk shirt clinging to the line of Helen's bust should fuel such utter rage in her, apart from the undeniable fact that Joy tended to go through her life with flames of unfocussed rage flickering at the side of her vision in any case. The point was that Helen's tastefully professional-but-feminine outfits grated on Joy's nerves like a steel comb. If Helen was going to dress like a figured example in a manual, at least she could have the decency to do as Gus did and be a complete prat about it.

Joy herself wore black or grey to work. Because it was easy, and because it suited her pale complexion and dark hair, although she wouldn't admit to herself that there was anyone at the hell-hole for whom it was worth dressing. Most of all, she wore dark colours because she was damned if she was going to pretend to be happy about working her arse off to make Sally and Henry look good and, if she was really lucky, earn Gus a pat on the head from Sir Royston. Dressing for a funeral was, in Joy's opinion, the perfect way to dress for a day as a PA at Globelink News.

* * *

**11.00 Sunday 31st August, 1997**

Editorial meetings at Globelink followed an established pattern. Helen would shoo everyone together like a golden sheepdog, and there would sometimes be a hurried attempt to get the running order organized before Gus popped up to assure everyone he wasn't there. Damien would be chided for something outrageous and almost definitely illegal; Helen would attempt to organise everyone and appeal to George for support just as if he was the one making the actual decisions; Helen would attempt to cut the fluffy items to focus on news issues while Gus changed the focus away from all that depressing political stuff and towards heart-warming articles about Hollywood adoptions and really telegenic footage of random violence; Henry would make sarcastic remarks; Sally would fuss about her image; and Joy and Dave would get stuck with all the dirty work. It was almost a comforting routine, in the sense that even living in a pool full of barracuda could become home with a little practice.

This morning was slightly different. The key staff had been up all night, and even Sally's smooth hair was slightly dishevelled. Damien was missing, although not actually turning in reports. He had made the mistake of looking up Jayne Mansfield before rushing off to France, and had been held up at the airport with a false decapitated head, fake blood clinging to the blonde wig, that he had apparently thought would lead to really sexy footage of the crash.

And there was the kind of despairing silence around the table that showed an awareness that, in a history of disasters at Globelink news, they had really, really stuffed it up this time.

"Can I ask why," Gus said in icy tones that indicated he was going to need a couple of hours in the isolation tank to regain his kilter, "when every news station in Britain, no, the world, was showing glowing images of the Rose of England visiting AIDS patients and sweeping down the aisle in ivory satin, our obit opened with the Squidgy tapes?"

Sally dabbed at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief, which had the advantage of not actually showing whether she'd actually managed to summon crocodile tears. Joy supposed she might actually be crying. Anchoring the reports of the Princess' death, in stylishly immaculate mourning, her voice melting with artificial compassion and her grave expression lightened by the occasional brave smile through her tears, was right up Sally's alley. "I've never been so humiliated in my life. Diana was an inspiration to me; I always thought we were twin souls, with the same graciousness and appeal. What _will_ the Princess Royal think next time we meet?"

"She might think it's funny." Joy pushed back the sides of her hair, escaping from the bun that held part of the dark mass out of her face. "I don't think Anne was too fond of her sister-in-law." She glanced across at Helen, who should have intervened by now, but was dipping her third chocolate croissant of the morning into her coffee, looking at the resulting mess with detached interest. There were deep shadows under her eyes that couldn't quite be accounted for by the car crash in France. Joy caught the fleeting thought that maybe she should check on her, and put it out of her mind. She had no time for hand-holding, and in any case Helen was militant on the subject of not bringing problems to work.

"Bit of a dilemma for you, isn't it, tight-arse?" Henry boomed at Sally. "What are you going to do: hitch your star with the tragic corpse or suck up to the in-laws that are still upright and breathing?"

"Henry! Gus, if you can't stop this tasteless -"

"Sally's right. We've had quite enough tastelessness today already. Now, who was responsible for this disgusting display?"

The attention of everyone in the room inevitably settled on Dave, who shifted uncomfortably.

"It was just a joke," he said. He looked genuinely guilty, as well as worried. Joy remembered that he'd always had a weakness for fragile blondes.

"A JOKE? Do you want to upload the dole queues into your humour matrix and see if any giggles come out?"

"Look, I didn't think anyone would even look at Di's obits. No one expected her to kick the bucket." Which was fair enough, Joy supposed, but didn't really dull her automatic rage against male inefficiency.

"Listen. A country is in mourning for their princess. They do not expect to turn on the news and hear her saying FUCK!" Gus' voice rose sharply on the last word, not quite of the quality of one of Henry's rants but still quite loud enough to make George spill his own coffee and leave the table, muttering something Joy was quite certain she didn't want to catch.

"Look, it's been a hard night and we have a lot ahead of us." Helen, apparently deciding that the remnants of croissant in the bottom of her cup were too disgusting to attempt eating, pushed it wearily aside. "If we could just move on..."

"An obituary is supposed to reflect someone's life, isn't it? Whining about the royal family and committing adultery sounds like Princess Diana to me." Joy wasn't sure herself why she was offering support to Helen, except that she looked so utterly drained. That being the case, it was quite unpleasant when the other woman rounded on her.

"Diana, Princess of Wales, _not_ Princess Diana! If we can't get even a little thing like that right, what the hell chance do we have?"

Joy favoured her with her most poisonous glare. There had to be limits as to how anal even Helen was, she felt, and even swollen skin around the eyes was no excuse.

"Now, now, do little details like that really matter, Helen?" Gus smiled, or at least he stretched the skin around his mouth so that his teeth showed. "The people want to remember her as their princess, just like they want to remember her speaking against landmines and looking telegenic in powder blue and _not committing adultery, Dave!_ So shouldn't we give the people what they want?"

"I don't see why she should be remembered for some trifling missteps on the path of virtue instead of all the good she did." Sally's cut-glass tones were clear and sweet, her tears forgotten, as for some reason she stared straight at Helen, emphasizing carefully "After all, the best of women sometimes fall prey to the _baser instincts_ of people who are _controlled_ by their own _unnatural lusts_."

Helen's face crumpled and she burst into tears.

* * *

Joy had been elected by Gus as the proper person to make Helen pull herself together, on account of it being women's work and George still being somewhere in the vicinity of the toilets. She stared helplessly at the other woman and passed tissues. She was no earthly good at this kind of thing; it was Helen who watched over a succession of interview guests in the green room, her blue eyes soft and wet with compassion. Helen had once admitted she'd had four green room proposals, and an innumerable number of other propositions, usually from politicians who swore she was the only one who ever understood them. Joy didn't do melting eyes, and didn't know what else to try.

There was always sympathy. "Snap out of it, Helen."

Helen blew her nose, noisily. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just so humiliating. If only it had been anyone but Sally."

It took Joy a few beats to work out what she meant, and a few more beats to edit the mental image before her brain fell out. It was general knowledge that Helen had earned her place in Joy's office newsletter, but there were actually worse things than being with Dave. Joy opened her mouth to yell at Helen for the utter stupidity of playing into Sally's hands like that, and managed just in time to correct it to, "So you've been where several hundred lorry drivers have been before. So what?"

Helen gave her a red-eyed glare. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"

Joy returned the glare. "What would? You want reassurance that dating outside your species is all right?"

"I wouldn't call it dating, exactly."

"I suppose not." Joy shuddered, and then came to some kind of decision. "Come on. Let's go to the pub."

Someone else might have questioned the time, but Helen's face creased into work-worry. At least it was better than tears. Joy sighed. "Look, George is still supposed to be the editor, right? Let him edit for a change. It's not like any actual news will be shown today, anyway. _You_ need to get away from the monster from the black lagoon, and _I_ need a drink." To erase certain images from my mind, she added, but only to herself.

She fully expected Helen to disagree, but instead she stood and reached for her handbag, still sniffing. "Yeah, all right."

* * *

In the end they hadn't been able to find a pub that was open and fit Helen's idea of a suitable place to spend her time, and Joy seemed reticent about her flat, so they ended up at Helen's place. Chloe was out, and Helen's relief was tempered by the suspicion that her fourteen year old daughter was attending a Young Conservatives meeting with her current boyfriend. It wasn't fair. You put everything you did into raising your daughter properly, and she went and turned into a Nazi on you.

She was a failure as a mother.

Helen poured out another round of horribly girlish chocolate milk alcohol, which was all she seemed to have left, and passed a glass back to Joy. She felt guilty about it, because Elaine had been firm on the evils of sugar, dairy and alcohol, and she'd be more horrified by this than by the croissants Helen had been downing all morning. Not that Elaine had any say over anything Helen did any longer, but Helen had spent three months trying to live up to the woman's whole food and health routine, and the guilt was automatic. It crept down to curl up with the guilt that always accompanied bringing women home when Chloe was out, which was equally ludicrous. First of all, Helen was her own woman, and if she hadn't quite got around to discussing certain subjects with her daughter, that didn't mean she was a criminal. Joy was... well, not a friend, exactly, she was too prickly for that and tended to spend her free time well away from Globelink, but at least someone Helen was comfortable borrowing tampons from, and certainly not a lover. If the latest disasters had taught Helen anything, it was that she was right to be sure that getting involved with people from work led to disaster. First Dave, now Sally...

" _Why_ Sally? I thought only men screwed plastic dolls."

Helen sipped the drink, and tried to answer Joy's question, the words forming with slow dreaminess. "I don't know. I was depressed. I'd just been through a nasty breakup. Sally's quite beautiful, really, in a strict way. All that controlled hair, and the suits." And the possibility had been there, quite suddenly. She'd been working late, and Sally for once had not gone home, just hung around making all kinds of pointed nasty remarks about deviants. Quite suddenly Helen had looked up at the slightly flushed face and bright eyes and realised what the point Sally was trying to make actually had been, and she was quite sure her reaction was horrified fascination and a desire to collect her things and go. Helen was sensible; she was the only person working at Globelink capable of approaching relationships in a healthy, levelheaded way, and she certainly did not end up pinning a woman she detested and despised to the wall of her office simply because it was a possibility.

She regretted it even as her hands slid expensive lycra tights down over too-thin hips. Helen didn't believe in casual sex or becoming involved in the work place, and the whole horrible mess with Dave had proven again how impossible it was just to push things away once they had happened, and there was no possibility of a relationship with Sally. Even if there _had_ been, the idea of living more closely than strictly necessary with Sally's shallowness was a horrible one for a woman who always liked to think of herself as nice. But Elaine had been terribly nice, and she'd left Helen hopeless and self-hating, and there was something honest in the way Sally made no attempt to return caresses. Most of all there had been a burning need to not do the right thing for once, because it never, ever helped.

And then Sally, with her lipstick smeared across her face - intentionally, Helen guessed even at the time, as if becoming messed up was all part of it - and her hair coming loose from her bun, the custom tailored Italian hot pink skirt riding around her waist, gasping as Helen's fingers found small breasts and pinched and twisted as she never did, loving sedately while trying not to wake Chloe... It had been beautiful, in its own way. And there had been a savage triumph at getting to Sally at last.

Driving home, she'd known she'd sold her soul to something worse than the devil. Worse than the knowledge that Sally, given a weapon, had so little in the way of self-reflection or scruples that she would use it, gleefully, over and over, was the knowledge that in Sally's mind being with Helen was on the same level as any casual rough trade, worthwhile only because it was dirty and wrong. Helen thought she'd dealt with all the guilt over her sexuality, long before. It was unendurable, being put in the wrong again.

Helen swirled her drink in her mouth. There was absolutely nothing of all that she could tell Joy. Most especially she couldn't tell her that if she was going to compromise her principles and sleep with a member of staff - again - she rather wished it had been Joy. For all the erratic rage and violence, Helen rather liked her. After all, her targets were usually useless men, or Sally, so only a truly unreasonable woman could object too stridently. Under that, less easily formed in Helen's mind, there was a vague but interesting tendency to wonder if all Joy's harsh energy could be turned in the service of something more tender than dangling sexual harassers naked out the window. And then there was all that soft dark hair, and the way her t-shirts and leggings clung to her skin.

"I suppose, when you see something perfectly controlled, you just want to see them really fucked for once." It took Helen, through the warm haze of alcohol and guilt and the left-over tingle of arousal, to realise it was Joy who had spoken, instead of herself.

"Yeah. Something like that."

Joy hesitated, as though she had been about to say something, then tossed her drink back instead. "This stuff tastes like a six year old ate sugar shock cereal and then threw up."

"I'm not a big drinker," Helen said defensively, then wondered what she was being defensive about. "Want some more?"

"Yeah, thanks." Joy picked up the next glass. "Want to watch the news? Might be a laugh."

"I don't think so," Helen said. It was getting harder to force sentences out, like pushing them through jelly. "It's always sad when someone young and in l-love dies..."

"Oh, for God's sake. You can stop drinking now if you're going to be maudlin."

"At least Charles can marry his true love, now."

"If you think marrying a tampon is an advantage. Anyway, I hate him," Joy said, calmly. "Born with a polo stick shoved up his arse."

"You hate all men."

"So? They're all bastards."

Helen opened her mouth to object, then decided, despite another stab of niggling guilt, that she didn't care. "The thing I liked about being heterosexual - about the only thing, mind - was being able to say 'men!' and dismiss them all." The words wound dreamily out of her. "It's too hard to say 'women!' in the same way when you are one." That struck Helen as mildly funny, and she gurgled.

"I prefer to say 'fucking men'. If I don't have an ice pick handy, that is."

"Why do you, then?"

"Fuck them?" Joy gave Helen an eye-rolling look that said all there was to say about women who couldn't form the word. "I leave the celibacy to Gus. I just wish they didn't always turn out to have bitch wives."

"There are other alternatives." It had to be the drink speaking, Helen decided. Certainly not the way Joy was leaning back in the chair, or the fact that she had a really beautiful voice, as lovely in its drawl as Henry's rolling tones or Sally's cold perfection.

"Making a pass at me, Helen?" When Helen stared blankly at her, trying to decide whether she could be offended by the implication that being a lesbian meant she would sleep with any woman when the fact that she had ripped Sally's silk underwear implied that, in fact, she would, Joy sighed. "Look, don't get me wrong. I think lesbianism is a great idea. All the sex you want and no dicks to deal with."

"Why are you always so angry?"

"Why are you always so bloody uptight about everything?"

"Joy, there's no need to shout. I'm just trying to -"

"And why are you always so bloody reasonable? Just shut up and do what you want for once!"

In Helen's imagination her hand came up and slapped down across Joy's face, shocking her into silence. Her fingers even spasmed, just a little.

She was pathetic. Her nose twitched as tears built up behind it again. She hated herself for it. She was supposed to be a strong corporate woman, and she spent far too much time blubbing, because she made mistakes, because she tried to do the right thing and was treated like a tight-arsed bitch for it, because she couldn't slap a bloody impertinent P.A. even when she was in the comfort of her own home and drunk.

"God, Helen." Joy sounded furious still, but she reached out and touched Helen's shoulder, pushing her fingers under the shoulder of her vest to touch the fabric of her shirt. "Why the hell are you crying again? Sally?" Helen gulped back a sob. "Don't tell me you're in love with her, or I'll have to violently throw up on your couch." Her fingers moved rhythmically, circling the muscle at the top of Helen's shoulder, and the motion was oddly soothing. Helen wanted to put her head down on Joy's thin shoulder and sob, as if she was George or someone safe, although George probably wasn't the safest person in whose arms to sob, come to think of it. Joy was far less likely to get the wrong idea, even if the wrong idea was oddly tempting.

"Of course I'm not in love with her."

"Not completely insane yet then, Stalin." Helen managed to smile at the nickname, although old hurt still throbbed. "You know, I really hate this shirt."

More hurt, confused now. "Why? It's the proper wear for a corporate woman."

"Exactly." Joy's hand slipped now, and she must have had too much of the vomitous chocolate milk liqueur as well, because her fingers were definitely sliding down the curve of Helen's breast, under the vest. "It pisses me off. I always want to -"

"Rip them right off me?" The word came straight from Joy's fingertips sliding over silk, because it had gone past the point at which even Helen could be dense about hints. And Chloe would be home soon, and Helen had made all kinds of resolutions about workmates that the Sally thing should have reinforced for life, and Helen should be going back to work _anyway_. It wasn't even as if Joy was a nice person. Beautiful and fascinating, yes, like a rather sharp and glistening knife, but not nice.

"Yeah. Something like that." Joy's fingers tightened and scraped, the pressure against the nipple softened by sensible bras and clinging silk, and Helen decided, sanely and soberly and very sensibly, to kiss her.

She'd intended the kiss to be daring and seductive and somehow defiant, but it was a very simple kiss, really, her open lips put against Joy's and her tongue pressed into Joy's mouth, straightforward and really quite incredibly wonderful, especially when Joy sucked her tongue deeper and scraped her lower teeth against it. Helen gasped and leaned into it, Joy's hands still hotly pressing silk against her breast and her ribcage.

She looked down into Joy's face, sharp and piquant and flushed under the skin, and felt a little stab of triumph. Not unlike what she'd felt at Sally crying out, but sweeter. But there was triumph in Joy's eyes, too, and something mocking.

"Chloe might be home soon."

"Well, it will finally stop you procrastinating about coming out, won't it?" And the buttons on the silk shirt came open, stopping any kind of a protest.

* * *

Joy stretched in the afternoon light. Gus wouldn't exactly be happy about the two most efficient members of staff disappearing all day, but then, he'd _told_ her to cheer Helen up, so bollocks to him and let him think twice before assigning her to nursemaid duties just because she had breasts, next time.

She half expected the news to be on and gallons of remorse, but Helen was curled up in bed reading, her blonde curls tousled and no signs of guilt at all on her face. The beautifully conservative navy suit was crumpled on the floor, and the dreadful silk shirt was in a tight ball under the sofa. It had been very soft to the touch, though...

Joy considered telling Helen that she thought she understood why she wanted to crack Sally's faade, but she wasn't sure that it would be tactful. After all, Helen hated Sally.

And Joy didn't hate Helen. Especially when she had been drinking. And even at other times, at least not when she'd just been given another job that rightly belonged to Dave or someone equally useless because she was just so good at getting work done, she didn't hate Helen entirely.

She slid her fingers through golden curls that looked far better messed up and were almost as soft as silk. She didn't _hate_ Helen. Which was as far as Joy was willing to venture about anybody, but it was... something.

Possibly even a start.

* * *

 **Disclaimer:** Globelink and its denizens are the creation and property of Guy Jenkins, Andy Hamilton and Hat Trick, and are used only for fan purposes. No disrespect is meant to any actual people, living or dead.

 

 

 


End file.
